The boys and girls in Primary 1 have been very busy learners in the month of November. Here are some of our highlights.

In Literacy we have been learning more alphabet sounds and we now know an amazing 15 sounds! We are using our magnetic boards and letters to help us to build our words. Using the 5 finger approach, we say/make/break/read and write our words. Here we are being independent learnings during our literacy tasks.

Primary 1 children love to read! We were really excited to bring back our classroom library and have had so much fun exploring the different genres and authors. Some of our children have learned to read independently and can blend the sounds to read words. What successful learners! We are using our stepping stones to help us to look at the first letter in a word and other special tricks to make reading easier.

For Book Week Scotland our buddies came to read to us. We really enjoyed listening to different stories and having fun with our friends from upstairs.

In Primary 1 we can now read, write and count the numbers to 10. We have been learning lots of new strategies during our numeracy time that help us to add our numbers and we love to use all of our concrete materials to help us with this. Adding is so much fun! We like to play number games and beat the teacher. We have been learning more about shapes and measuring too.

We love music and dancing in Primary 1. Our friend from Primary 7 came to play his instrument and we had a concert. We were so delighted to learn more about the accordion and listen to the wonderful music. Thank you!

On Remembrance Day we took part in lots of activities that helped us to learn more about Poppy Scotland. We made poppy crafts and prayed for the people that fought in war. We also prayed for the holy souls and our loved ones who are no longer with us.

We know how to be safe in Primary 1. We learned all about firework and bonfire safety when it was Guy Fawkes. We learned the story of Guy Fawkes and created our own firework pictures.

Here we are celebrating the feast of St Andrew. We wore tartan and Scottish clothing to school. We learned all about our Patron Saint and had lots of fun eating shortbread and dancing to ceilidh music.

As it is now Winter we have been investigating the changes that happen to our environment during this season. We went on a Winter walk with our friends and spotted lots of signs of Winter.

We have been working really hard to prepare for our Nativity show ‘Wriggly Nativity’ with our friends in Primary 2 and 3. Primary 1 have all been given a role to play and we are really looking forward to our show being posted on the Holy Family Youtube channel. Our singing and dancing is amazing!

December is going to be a very exciting month for us and we can’t wait for all of the festivities. Look out for our photographs on Twitter!

Primary 5/6 have had another successful month during November.

We have been working extremely hard in maths developing our multiplication and division skills. We have been learning new strategies and problem-solving skills to solve our  sums. Through our consistent hard work during maths, we are now recognising the correlation between multiplication and division which aids our understanding of these numeracy topics even deeper, and as such, strengthens our skills.

We do a range of active maths exercises to supplement our learning such as Daily 10, multiplication and division bingo, Number Talks, and some others.

We have been showing great progress in literacy. We have been reading our literacy novels, ‘Holes’ by Louis Sachar and ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ by Roald Dahl. We have been applying our reading strategies throughout our novels, enabling us to gain a greater understanding of the texts. We have also been practising our oral skills by reading to our groups, in pairs, or to our self. We have also been enjoying watching chunks of both movie adaptions once we successfully complete our tasks.

Furthermore, we are enjoying learning our new spelling words each week. We work hard at learning our new phoneme of the week, spelling rule or common words.

We have been successful learners during our topic time. This month we explored interesting facts about capital cities. We played a Kahoot quiz during ICT time to assess our knowledge and later in the week, had another quiz where we had to press the buzzer to answer the capital city question. We then moved onto investigating foods from around the world and enjoyed tasting French cuisine by munching on crepes, macaroons, and croissants, whilst making our own menus.

We have been confident individuals during PE. We have been practising our striking and fielding skills on a Wednesday when we play Handball.

We have also been responsible citizens by making Christmas crafts to sell to the school on Wednesday, December 1^st to raise money for Mary’s Meals.

We are so sorry you haven’t had an update from P4 for a while now. The good thing in, there’s lots of news to share with you!

We started the year harvesting fruit and vegetables from the school grounds. The children absolutely loved this experience and trying all the different flavours; some of them for the very first time!

In RE, we learned about how Liturgical Colours are different depending on the time of year in the Christian calendar. We worked in groups to create decoupage vestments to be displayed.

In PE, we have been working on our ball skills. We’ve used footballs for passing, dribbling and shooting using our feet; basketballs for passing, dribbling and shooting using our hands; and tennis balls for bouncing and returning shots.

We have been studying The Victorians and learning all about Queen Victoria’s reign. What do you think of our Victorian portraits?

As an extra project, the pupils in P4 are helping Mrs Cooney sort the library. They have had some great ideas about how to improve the area and have been a great help gathering and sorting some of the books.

During Maths Week Scotland, we looked at 2D shape and tiling. Look at all these happy faces doing active maths:

(some of their ideas for the library)

HHelping to sort the library and also using it to do some independent reading.

During October, P4 learned about the Mysteries of the Rosary. Here is some super artwork showing the Joyful Mysteries:

Some of our FANTASTIC readers from the past few weeks:

As part of our Eco work on Climate Change, we took part in a live lesson involving schools from all over North Lanarkshire. We watched and responded to presentations by NL Youth Climate Ambassadors about Travel and one from Stuart Naismith from Gartcosh PS all about renewable energy.

Look out for a letter from your child very soon!

Of course, there was also Hallowe’en! Everyone came in dressed up in weird and wonderful outfits! Even Mrs Cooney was dressed as Cinderella – but after making messy donut-and-pretzel spiders, she felt a lot more like Cinders BEFORE she had met her Fairy Godmother!

We bowled a pumpkin at some toilet rolls and we did a spooky parade. I will also send everyone their very own Hallowe’en portrait – check your emails, P4!

It won’t be long before I’m updating you all about the Christmas activities we’ll be getting up to!

Here is the link to tonight’s Parent Council Meeting….

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85098589089?pwd=bG9xZkU4Nm9mNW90TDBVSGo2RXFtdz09

Meeting ID: 850 9858 9089
Passcode: 6U7CER

This will take place at 6.30 pm. Please help support your child’s school by joining.

The children in Primary 3/4 have had a very busy few months since returning to school so we would like to share some of their learning with you. 

In Maths the children have been learning a variety of approaches and strategies to aid them in their learning. In Number Talks they are developing secure mental strategies that they can draw upon when faced with any calculation. Through this the children demonstrate that they are confident individuals as they eagerly share their responses, solutions and justifications. The children know how to estimate and round numbers to the nearest tens, hundreds and thousands. They have used concrete materials to explore Place Value and this has really helped with Addition so far and will help as they continue to develop skills in subtraction, multiplication and division. 

In Literacy the children continue to work hard on their Spelling, Reading and Writing.  The Green Group have been learning all about phoneme families and are learning to use spelling strategies such as ‘word within a word’, ‘compound words’ and ‘syllabification’. Ask them to demonstrate how these help them work out tricky or new words.

The Red Group are working through the Active Literacy programme and are learning new phonemes and common words each. The children love to look for these sounds and words in their surroundings and get very excited when they spot them.

In addition to their various Home Reading Books, the boys and girls have been reading ‘Poppet’, a story about a baby African Elephant who becomes friends with a little mouse. The children have used this to develop their comprehension skills and are working hard to produce answers in full sentences.

In Health and Wellbeing the children have been learning about staying safe and healthy. They take every opportunity to get outdoors for PE and have been effective contributors to our school community by participating in Beat the Street. Friday afternoons are spent with their friends in Primary 2/3 at Hope Street Park as a fun way to end their hardworking week.

With October being the month of the Holy Rosary the children have learned how to pray the Rosary and have visited Holy Family Church every Tuesday with primary 2/3 to pray in the gardens. This has been a really lovely experience for us all and it is wonderful to see the children enjoying being in the Church again. Please try and provide this opportunity for children by attending Sunday Mass, especially if the children are making their sacraments this year.

The boys and girls also participated in their Class STEM challenge ‘Spaghetti Towers’ where they used Spaghetti and Marshmallows to design and build a freestanding tower. They loved this and look forward to doing more challenges throughout the year.

Our IDL topic has been the Vikings and the children have developed a range of skills across many areas of the curriculum, they made 3D Longships and explored symmetry when designing their own Viking shields. They also used the knowledge that they have gained to create posters giving others information all about the Vikings, their lifestyles and their beliefs.

The children have recently began to learn all about Climate Change and what is happening during COP26. They have been learning about what Pope Francis said in Laudato Si and are eager to demonstrate that they are responsible citizens by contributing individually, as a class, and as part of the whole school to help tackle the impact of Climate Change on their World.

As you can see the children have experienced many successes as learners over the last few months so what better way to celebrate this than a fun filled Halloween Party which they are so excited about.

Primary 5/6 have been working extremely hard learning and successfully applying their reading strategies as well as practising their verbal reading skills. Primary 6 are reading Holes by Louis Sachar and Primary 5 are reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. Primary 5/6 have also been learning and successfully applying their spelling strategies.

In Maths, we have been working very hard learning our addition and subtraction strategies. We have also been learning a ‘times table of the week’ in conjunction with our number strategies. We will be moving on to multiplication and division.

During topic time, Primary 5/6 have been creating a new invention in their groups to combat climate change, in the run up to COP26. We have also incorporated our oceans and continents topic in our expressive arts lessons by creating posters of animals from different continents in their natural habitats as well as learning songs from different continents.

We have been learning about the life of Jesus during RE recently. In particular, we have looked at Jesus the Healer and Jesus the Teacher.

Primary 5/6 have been successful learners and Miss Gallagher is very proud.

We have had a very busy month in Primary 2. The children have been working so hard and have learned so much.

Within Maths we have been focusing on number. Our Cubes group have worked so hard within numbers to 20. We have looked at numbers before and after, larger and smaller and we have been ordering. Our Counters group have challenged themselves within numbers to 100 by learning about Place Value through working with tens and units. The children enjoy using concrete materials to help them with their learning. Here are some of our superstars learning through play.

Within Literacy, we have continued to work hard on our new sounds and common words. We enjoy building words using the sounds we learn and our great progress can be seen in our reading and writing. Here are some activities that we have enjoyed during our phonics lessons.

In Taught Writing we have been using a selection of spooky stories to help us to create exciting stories. We especially loved learning about the story ‘Room on the Broom’ and after writing, we made fabulous witches using a variety of materials including autumn leaves. Mrs Simpson loves to pick Star Writers each week. Here are a few of them showing their super work! This month we have been thinking about adjectives. We enjoyed creating adjectives for a range of different pictures and we used lots of these super descriptive words in our stories.

We enjoyed learning about the Month of the Holy Rosary in October, and we enjoyed paying visits to the gardens of the church where we participated in a decade of the holy rosary. We have begun to understand that the rosary prayer tells us about  the life of Jesus and his mother, Mary. It was a great time to learn about this, as we have been studying the topic Jesus’ Family and Yours within our R.E. lessons. Within this topic, we particularly enjoyed hearing about the story of the boy Jesus in the Temple. Pope Francis has called for us all to unite together and care for our planet. We have been learning about COP26 in Primary 2 and we discussed ways we could look after the environment. We made bunting to celebrate the conference. Here are some of our pupils showing off their promises.

Health and Wellbeing is extremely important to us and is a core part of our curriculum. This month we finished up our topic on People who Help Us. We carried out wonderful solo talks about someone we know who has a job helping people. Mrs Simpson was delighted with us. She said we had prepared so well and we demonstrated lots of confidence. We made sure we were a super audience when others had a chance to speak, and asked lots of super questions when they were finished. More recently, we have been learning about the importance of sleep. We read the story of ‘Sleeping Beauty’, thought about how we feel when we don’t get enough sleep and we designed cosy onesies for bedtime.

Our recent class topics have been Traditional Tales and Halloween. We especially enjoy purposeful play and the challenges we solve in carousel activities. We studied stories such as ‘Goldilocks’, ‘The Gingerbread Man’ and ‘The Three Little Pigs’. We loved making the pigs from the story, then creating houses made of Lego for the pigs to live in. Here are some of our favourite activities from Purposeful Play afternoons.

We understand the need for fresh air and exercise in Primary 2. We love to learn in an active way in the great outdoors. We have been great team players this month and worked so hard to earn lots of Beat the Street points for Holy Family Primary School. We also enjoyed the lovely Autumn weather and went on an Autumn walk to discover what we could hear, see, smell and touch.

Mrs Simpson is so proud of us for all our hard work. She said we should give ourselves a tap on the back as we have been successful learners this month. We can’t wait to start our new learning in November!

Good afternoon,

As we are still unable to have parents and carers into the school for our annual Curriculum Night, each of our classes have produced a video. Click on the link for your child’s class…

Primary 1

Part 1

https://vimeo.com/612647432

Part 2

https://vimeo.com/612643247

Part 3

https://vimeo.com/612645459

Part 4

https://vimeo.com/612639947

Part 5

https://vimeo.com/612649808

Primary 2

https://vimeo.com/612632143

Primary  2/3

https://vimeo.com/612638199

Primary 3/4

https://glowscotland-my.sharepoint.com/personal/nlcookh_glow_sch_uk/Documents/Attachments/IMG_0717%201.MOV

Primary 4

https://vimeo.com/612611994

Primary 5/6

https://vimeo.com/612605016

Primary 6

https://vimeo.com/612601409

Primary 7

https://vimeo.com/612577018

Here are the details for tonight’s Parent Council meeting –

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5303457556?pwd=THJYeUQva2JuYTZiUUUvS2dEUDJ0QT09

Meeting ID: 530 345 7556
Passcode: Q3e7EG

Start time- 6.30 pm

Please note that Parent Council meetings will take place online on a Tuesday night (6.30 pm)  on the following dates-

Tuesday 7th September
Tuesday 2nd November
Tuesday 11th January
Tuesday 8th March
Tuesday 3rd May

We would love to see some new faces. Please support our school community. The link to our first meeting will be shared next week.